On 13 January 1840 the paddlewheel steamboat Lexington was en route from Manhattan to Stonington, when a casing around her smokestack caught fire and ignited nearly 150 bales of cotton cargo nearby. The fire could not be extinguished and the ship was abandoned. Her overcrowded lifeboats sank almost immediately after launch, leaving almost all her passengers and crew in freezing water. Of the estimated 143 people aboard, four survived by clinging to floating bales of cotton.